


Anchor

by IndianSummer13



Series: Picket Fences [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Miscarriage, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12250365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: She does what she can to hide it. Until she doesn't have to anymore.





	Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> If you hadn't noticed the tag, there are depictions of miscarriage in this work.
> 
> As a side note, I listened to Anchor by Novo Amor while writing this. It's hauntingly beautiful.

It’s not the sudden realisation Betty once thought it would be. Instead, it’s more of a gradual inkling that something’s different; that she _feels_ different.

If she analyses it thoroughly (which, of course, she does) it begins with a loss of appetite. Ironic really, when one of the most overused pregnancy phrases is ‘eating for two’. She isn’t hungry. She doesn’t want the milkshake Jughead buys for her at Pop’s, nor the breakfast croissants Veronica brings to school the following day. None of it makes her nauseous - she’s just not interested.

This initial development is followed by her breasts becoming sore and tender. Jughead takes a nipple between his thumb and his forefinger one night in that tiny trailer bedroom of his, and instead of the usual moan it draws from her mouth, a wince escapes instead. Of course, he apologises profusely, even though he didn’t do anything wrong. She tells him she loves him; she’s just waiting for her period, that’s all. 

And they continue (with his fingers gripping her hips instead and a pointless condom sheathing his length).

Days later, she sinks her nails into her palms and feels tears prick in her eyes for no reason other than she’d really wanted strawberry ice cream and there’s only mint chocolate chip and honeycomb in the store. It’s winter and she buys the honeycomb anyway but the strawberry kind was the only thing she’d actually fancied eating in so long that the crunchy pieces of sugar are a bitter disappointment. 

Later, she cries about it again into her pillow and Jughead looks at her in utter bewilderment. 

(He kisses her and hushes her and tells her he loves her anyway)

At school, her concentration wanes. In fairness, her concentration wanes at home too, but that’s almost exclusively down to Jughead and his very, _very_ talented mouth.

She scores a 79 on an English test and even Archie frowns at her paper, confused. When the bell rings at the end of class, the teacher asks her if everything’s alright and Betty opens her mouth to say ‘of course’. And then she smells something from the cafeteria, forces down a wave of nausea and decides that no, it’s not.

After the final bell that afternoon, she takes the bus to Greendale, buys a test from the drug store, then heads to the coffee house down the road. She makes straight for the bathroom and doesn’t even feel bad about not having ordered anything first.

The blue plus sign appears like she’d figured it would, and for all that she’s always planned everything to the letter, she’s never factored in this. Perhaps there should be a moment where she has some sort of breakdown, and yet it doesn’t come. Apparently, she can cry over ice cream but not this. 

Carefully, Betty wraps the test in some toilet paper, places it in the bin and washes her hands. She buys an americano to take out, uses it solely for the purpose of keeping her hands warm until the bus comes, and then disposes of it in the trash can before showing her return ticket to the driver.

-

Snow arrives and she bundles up in thick sweaters and scarves at school. At home, she spends her time in her room, trying to study and getting distracted by the photograph of her and Polly wedged into the corner of her mirror. 

Jughead comes over for a dinner of roast chicken and potatoes, stuffing and three different kinds of vegetables, which is strange seeing as Thanksgiving and Christmas have been and gone. She’s getting pretty tired of pushing around white meat with her fork.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything Betty?” her mom asks.

“I’m not hungry,” she replies.

(And it’s the truth)

“I’ve told you not to go to Pop’s before dinner,” her mom continues. “You knew Jughead was coming over tonight.”

Betty sighs but can’t be bothered to respond. Tiredness has crept up on her in the past few days and she just wants to shower and crawl into bed. Preferably with her boyfriend but she knows she’ll fall asleep on her own without a problem if not. 

Jughead eyes her across the table - he knows she wasn’t at Pop’s tonight, but he seems to decide it’s best not to say anything. She watches him stab a chantenay carrot with his fork and fight a wince at the crunch it emits between his teeth. Considering how much he loves food, he’s never been a big fan of vegetables and whenever she’s cooked for him before, she’s boiled them for so long that it’s highly likely they no longer contain any nutrients or vitamins.

Her dad asks him something about the robbery on the south side last week and Betty goes back to thinking about the night that Polly told her parents she was pregnant with Jason’s baby (or babies, as it had turned out). She’d been out with Kevin and now she wishes she’d been upstairs in her bedroom, listening. 

She wishes she’d been able to protect Polly from their parents’ decision.

(She wishes she’d been able to protect her mom from her dad’s decision, all of those years before, too)

Both she and Jughead are excused from the table after he’s eaten two helpings of apple crumble and thanked her mom for inviting him over.

“It’s no trouble,” she says, but doesn’t seem to mean it.

They head upstairs and when Alice doesn’t remind her to keep her door open, she knows it’s because she wants to discuss with her dad about sending her to her psychiatrist again.

“Betts,” Jughead begins carefully, but she pushes her body against him and he lets her lips capture his, and then whatever his words were die somewhere between his mouth and hers. Later though, when she’s taken a shower on his say-so and he’s carding through her hair as she burrows into his side, he repeats her name in the same way he had earlier. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbles sleepily. It’s not the truth but it’s not _not_ the truth either. 

-

She quits the Vixens in February, around the time her appetite returns with full force (and then some). Despite having eaten not much more than soup for the better part of two months, her uniform is starting to feel tight, and Betty knows it’s only a matter of time before someone - _Cheryl_ \- passes comment. 

With the time she’d usually spend rehearsing freed up, she writes more and more stories for the Blue and Gold, even covering a few events in Greendale. It’s almost funny, she thinks, how she has all of these words for people she doesn’t really know, and yet she can’t find the ones she needs to tell Jughead about the life inside of her.

He deserves better than a blurted ‘I’m pregnant’.

(Really though, he deserves not to have to know it at all)

There’s a Spring Fling dance a few weeks later and when he asks her why she hadn’t told him about it, she shuffles closer on the couch, keeping her body angled away from him (not easy when the latest development is that she’s permanently aroused by anything to do with him) as he presses a kiss into her hair.

“I’d rather be here,” she says honestly. 

“But you love dances,” he replies, tracing the shallow crescent scars on her palms.

She wants to tell him that she loves him more. Instead, she turns around, unbuckles his belt and takes him into her mouth.

He swears in surprise and groans in arousal and when he finishes, she pretends to remember a science assignment that’s due tomorrow. When she leaves, she notes the expression on Jughead’s face, like he’s resigning himself to something.

She doesn’t know what, and she doesn’t stay long enough to find out.

-

She sleeps with her hand cast over her abdomen. It’s slightly swollen but Betty feels hollow.

Jughead comes over without his beanie; with unkempt hair and cloudy eyes and he sits on her bed choking out, “Betts.”

“I love you,” is what she whispers with tears running down her cheeks. He swipes at them delicately with his thumb and then kisses the trail left behind. He’s so beautifully gentle that her whole body aches, but yet he’s wearing his serpents’ jacket and it’s a reminder that this situation didn’t work for her mom and it didn’t work for Polly and it’s not going to work for her, either.

(She hates herself for daring to think it just might - if she could only find the right words)

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

She’s not really sure if the ‘I love you’ he whispers into her neck right before he leaves is a not-so-obvious disguise for ‘goodbye’ but Betty watches him go anyway, listens for the engine of his motorcycle tail off into the distance and then sobs into her pillow.

The next day, she feels different again, like there’s a pressure building low inside of her. She’s been trying to solve a simultaneous equation for nearly fifteen minutes when a searing pain tears at her out of nowhere and she all but doubles over, hand clutching at her stomach automatically.

Good girl Betty Cooper doesn’t raise her hand and ask to go to the bathroom. Instead, she flees the classroom as fast as she can (which isn’t all that quickly, really) and heads to the nearest stall.

Unlike the gradual realisation that she was pregnant, this realisation - the one that she’s miscarrying - hits instantly. It’s like her body is forcing the foetus out of her, trying to use blind speed to get it all over with quicker so she can get back to class and River Vixens and Jughead and live her normal Betty Cooper life.

There’s the unmistakable sound of splashing; the unmistakable feeling of something falling out of her and when she stands, despite the lightning strike of pain across her abdomen, all she can focus on is what’s between her legs in the toilet bowl.

Perhaps it’s stupid, but she hadn’t assumed it would look so much like a baby. 

After that, a welcome black arrives at the edges of her vision, drawing in until behind her eyes is a sea of calm. There’s a voice somewhere in the vicinity though sounding akin to Veronica’s, muffled and agitated, and all Betty wants is for it to shut the fuck up. 

Eventually, it does.

-

Her first thought is that there’s an obnoxious amount of white. She’d preferred the black before, the dull fuzziness it had when it had lulled her away from all of the red.

Red.

Her hand feels across her stomach but silently, she scolds her brain for the pointless task. Tears burn in her eyes but she screws them back shut again. And then,

“Betty?” It’s Jughead’s voice - sounding like it’s been strangled from his throat. She reopens her eyes and he’s looking at her with such a horrible mix of guilt and pity that the words are already tumbling from her lips.

“I’m sorry. I’m sor-”

“-No.” His voice is barely even audible. “God, no Betty. You…” he can’t finish - just buries his face into the crook of her neck and breathes hot air against her skin. 

She feels the gentle shudder of his shoulders followed by heavy, wet tears and she just thinks that any words - clumsy or not - would’ve been better than this.

But maybe it’s God’s punishment for her lack of plan. Because really, what did she think was going to happen? They don’t know a single person in Riverdale who’s gotten their happily ever after so it’s not like she was going to be the first one gifted with it.

“I’m so sorry,” he mouths against her skin. It’s the closest to her that he’s been in months and she finds herself regretting all of those nights where she’d turned her head. She wants so much for him to hold her now that her limbs feel heavy with the weight of it. “About the baby,” he adds. “I’m sorry about the baby.”

She hadn’t thought of it as that in the last twelve weeks but she figures that’s what it was. A baby.

She can’t speak.

“You wanted it.”

It’s not like she’d let herself think it, but yeah, she supposes. She did. And now here they are.

“I’m sorry.”

Betty shakes her head. She doesn’t want to hear it again. Jughead lifts his face out of her neck and traces her forehead with his fingertips. “I love you.”

This time, his words don’t sound like a goodbye.

They sound like an anchor.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a follow-up to this at some point.
> 
> Comments are always greatly appreciated.


End file.
